Lady Merry's Dashing Champion

Meriel St. Thomas raced up the sweeping oak stairs of Cheatham House in answer to Lady Judith's urgent call, clutching up her rough woolen gown to speed her way. A lady's maid soon learned that swift response was necessary to her work, if she wished to stay above the scullery. And who would not wish it? Yet Meriel could not keep from slowing, her hand caressing the richly carved and highly polished banister and finials, smiling all the while.

She was beguiled by the fine furniture and rich tapestries of her master's house, though she knew it would not do to admire them too openly, pretending to a station that could never be hers. Or so the other servants constantly reminded her. MeriePs smile grew wider, for such pretense was the true and deepest part of her. But she was no idle dreamer. She knew her place as any servant would, but always wondered who she was meant to be. No strange thing in an orphan.

Hey, well, I could be a princess bewitched by an evil demon. When looking for an answer, don't overlook a possibility.

Stopping on the second-floor landing, Meriel laughed aloud. She had always had a sharp inner voice, a saucy tongue that spoke as it liked and often said what a servant could not.

"Meriel! Meriel! Where are you, girl? Come up to me and at once!"

The shrilly pitiful calls echoed along the hall toward Meriel, her name cried with increasing urgency. Lady Judith was in good carrying voice today, despite her head aching sorely with her near-constant megrims.

"There you are!" Lady Judith said, one hand squeezing her head, the other dangling over the bedside as Meriel opened the door. "Girl, how can you desert me when I am in much pain?"

"I'm sorry, m'lady. I was delayed by other duties."

"There is no excuse for poor service when I am ailing," she said, her petulant voice spiraling higher, full of her need for attention. "I need my physic. And I need your healing rub. My head pounds this morn. You know you are the only one who can halt my aching...." She trailed off, unable to think of more requests for the moment.

Meriel gave her the laudanum she wanted, which was reduced by two parts wine and sugar, lest her ladyship fall into a daylong stupor. Gently turning her to her side, Meriel began to knead her well-fleshed neck and shoulders, making soothing noises as to a babe. Once Lady Judith began to snore, Meriel straightened the bed linen, removed a plate of ginger cakes from under the coverlet, swept away the crumbs and gently closed the bed curtains. Sunlight was sure to provoke more anguish in her ladyship. Bending to her work, Meriel cleared the floor of hairbrushes, combs and pillows, which Lady Judith threw about when her cries were not answered with the speed due to quality folk in an advanced state of noisy misery.

Finished with her task, Meriel stood alone in the middle of the room and closed her eyes, inhaling a goodly breath. Up the stairs. Down the stairs. Fetch this. Fetch that. Please God that this was not the sum of all her days. There had to be more of life for Meriel St. Thomas, although even that name was borrowed, since she'd been abandoned as a new babe on the steps of Canterbury Cathedral where Thomas Becket, the old saint, was entombed. She knew in her heart... had ever felt... that she must be destined for more than a serving maid's life. But what? And when would it begin?

The hours she'd spent in the schoolroom while young Edward and his older sister, Elizabeth, were being tutored, and in Sir Edward's library of books, maps and ship's plans, had opened the world beyond Canterbury to her and closed the world below stairs. The other servants had grown to spitefully resent her learning and the master's preferment. Their constant criticism and lying attempts to force her from favor had driven her from them and deeper into her books.

Meriel heard the crunch of carriage wheels and fairly danced to the windows overlooking the drive next to the River Stour as it flowed near to the town. At last! Sir Edward was returned from London. Perhaps he would take her sailing in his shallop again, allowing her to helm the little ship as it raced before the wind, the freshening breeze blowing away every care.

She breathed deeply, feeling safer now. He had rescued her once from the workhouse near ten years gone, and he would keep his jealous servants in check. Or she would. 'Od's life, but she would.

Since Meriel was sure that the house servants were gathered at the entrance to greet their returning master, she climbed out the window, tying her shoes about her neck, and walked sure-footed, balancing along the ridge with her arms wide in a delicate roof dance to the lattice that reached down beside the library windows. She was yet slender enough to descend through the vines as she had since a child, when this had been her preferred way of visiting an always welcoming Sir Edward without the other servants knowing.

Stepping through the window, which reached the floor, and into the library, she brushed her long dark curls from her eyes and removed stray ivy leaves from her hair. Grinning at her own foolishness, she curtsied to the marble head in the form of a Greek god sitting on its plinth. The silent, handsome face of Lord Giles, the Earl of Warborough, had been commissioned by the king to honor England's bravest hero after the Battle of the Four Days against the Dutch fleet in the last year. He was a friend of Sir Edward and the idol to whom she had told all her private womanly secrets. And Lord Giles had always listened, never scoffed or scolded.

Today with a soft laugh, she bent to kiss the curving, cold stone lips with as much enthusiasm as a woman hoping for some return. "There, my love, that should keep you satisfied until next we are alone." Although it had been all in fun, the shock of meeting his cold lips and finding they added to her own body's heat halted her amusement. Could she be taking this impossible playact too far even for a jest?

Meriel was still searching for amusement in her own foolery when Sir Edward threw open the paneled oaken doors and entered the room, tossing his great traveling cloak to the porter. "Welcome home, sir," she said with a curtsy, truly delighted to see him.

"Meriel, you are too much a woman grown to be climbing about the roof like a young boy," Sir Edward said, but his kindly voice had as much good humor as censure.

"Aye, aye, Sir Admiral," Meriel said, giving a sailor's two-tlngered salute to her forehead. It had been this pert address that had first drawn Sir Edward's attention to the dirty-faced young girl while performing his charitable duty to the parish orphanage. After he had taken her into his service, she had continued to address him impudently in private as a sign of the real affection she soon held for him.

Returning her smile—for what man of any age does not delight in a mischievous woman?—Sir Edward flopped into his great chair and held his legs aloft for his manservant to remove his boots.

"Sit, girl, and tell me the news, though I doubt if all of yours will match the least of mine."

"Then I would hear yours the sooner, sir." Meriel poured a glass of Portuguese Madeira, his favorite wine, served him, then perched on the edge of a stool nearby.

"Leave us," Sir Edward said without a glance at bis sullen porter. He might have been surprised to see the sudden flare of jealousy. Or he might not. Sir Edward had commanded men at sea, and knew that favorites were resented or even thrown overboard, as Meriel had no doubt was the fate the porter hoped for her.

When the door had closed, rather more sharply than need be, Meriel gave an account that Lady Judith was sleeping from a draught to cure her megrim.

Sir Edward sighed, but quickly brightened since he was ever an optimistic man. "Soon I will have the royal physicians to physic her. They will surely have a cure."

Meriel felt in sudden need of physic herself. "Sir Edward, are you leaving Canterbury? Will you take the little ones? Will you ..." She took a deep breath.

"Hold, m'girl. There is excellent good news. I have been given an important post at the Admiralty, overseeing the design of new warships to send against the infernal Dutch. They continue to challenge our sea power in the Americas and our East India trade. Though we are in peace negotiations, the Admiralty believes they are coming against us again. Whitehall is abuzz with the sound of young bucks sharpening their swords." He stopped, teasingly pretending to inspect his fingernails while she stopped breathing altogether. "This is a post so important, m'girl, that I'm to have quarters in the palace so that I may consult with His Majesty and the Duke of York upon their least desire. You may not know, but our king is greatly interested in all sciences, especially those that concern the architecture of the fleet."

"But, sir—"

"Quiet, now, and listen well. I will be taking my family." He stopped to loosen his neck cloth for another excruciating moment. "And, by the by, you will be coming with us." He grinned at her.

"Me? To the palace of Whitehall? To see London? To see the king?" She was already on her feet, twirling about, her cap flying off, her curling black hair tumbling about her shoulders. When she reached the plinth, she threw her arms about the handsome marble head and asked, "And will I see the Earl of Warborough?" Oh, what would she do if he was before her, or even brushed against her in a palace passageway? She put up her hands to cover her cheeks and hide the high color rushing to them.

"Eh, what's this? Calm yourself, girl. The earl serves the king as Gentleman of the Bedchamber so you may well see him from a distance. But you go to London because the children will have need of you, as will my lady." He smiled slyly. "And perhaps we can find a husband worthy of you, a lord's majordomo, or even a tradesman. Surely your beauty will urge men to apply to me for your hand."

No! She would not marry a servant, no matter how high, or a tradesman. True, it was said of women in this modern day that they had two ways to spend their lives: through the back door as a servant or through the front door as a wife. But she would spend hers in some other way. She knew not how she knew it or what it would be, but she knew. "Sir Edward, I am determined in my mind to remain a maiden. For now."

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